Marrou sees shoplifting danger in plastic-bag ban

SAN ANTONIO — The sonorous voice of former KENS-5 anchorman Chris Marrou hasn't been heard on San Antonio TV in five years, but this week I listened as that voice dissected Councilman Cris Medina's proposed ban on single-use shopping bags at local stores.

Marrou, 66, was an amiable funnyman during his 35-year run at KENS — not above a sweeps-week search for the Texas Big Foot or a nightly Ron Burgundy-esque montage of goofball news clips from around the world.

During his long anchorman stint, Marrou generally kept his politics under wraps. It was never a secret to his friends, however, that he's a committed conservative whose brother, Andre, served as a state representative in Alaska and was the Libertarian Party's 1992 presidential nominee.

Marrou divides his time these days between San Antonio (serving as an associate municipal court judge in Von Ormy) and Santa Fe, N.M., where he was staying this week when I called him to talk about plastic bags.

Marrou had recently emailed my colleague, Josh Baugh, to say that Medina's proposed single-use bag ban will lead to a rise in shoplifting at local stores because people will find it easier to hide stolen items in reusable bags they bring into the store than plastic bags provided at a checkout counter.

This was a new argument in the local plastic bag debate, which has focused on the environmental impact of the proposed ban and the ways in which it could inconvenience customers. Medina's proposal is set to go before the full City Council at a “B” Session in late May or early June.

“It's kind of just a political shibboleth,” Marrou said of Medina's proposed ordinance. (At this point, I'll digress to say that you haven't heard the word “shibboleth” until you've heard it crooned by Marrou's resonant pipes.)

“The one thing the retailer doesn't want to deal with is people bringing bags into his business, because it's far too easy to shoplift,” he added.

Seattle implemented a plastic bag ban in July 2012, and a January 2013 survey by Seattle Public Utilities found that 21.1 percent of business owners identified increased shoplifting as a problem (although only 8.1 percent called it a “big problem”).

Mike Duke, the owner of the Seattle-based Lake City Grocery Outlet, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he lost nearly $9,000 in shoplifted produce and frozen food within the first six months of the ban's introduction.

Conservative opponents of Austin's plastic bag law also point to anecdotal accounts of shoplifting problems there.

Colin Strother, council aide to Medina, downplays the value of the existing evidence.

“These reusable bags are already in place all over San Antonio, and if someone is a dishonest person and a thief, they're probably already using these bags,” Strother said. “It'll really comes down to the retailer. Right now, there's nothing to stop me from putting a toothbrush or a potato in my pocket, except for (retail) loss prevention.”

Marrou has published two libertarian-leaning tomes: “Supreme Arrogance” and “America's 10 Biggest Mistakes.” He has also written an unpublished book called “23 Liberal Myths and The Truth Behind Them.”

Myth No. 17: “Recyclingness is next to godliness.”

In the book, Marrou describes recycling as “the Holy Communion of the Church of Liberalism,” and calls it “an object of faith that everything should be recycled, whether it makes economic sense or not.”

Even before Marrou's 2009 retirement from broadcasting, his name occasionally came up as a potential political candidate. To be sure, he possesses a point of view, plenty of free time and loads of local name recognition. But he seems to prefer the role of observer over participant.

“I often thought about it, but first of all, when you run for office, half the people hate you,” Marrou said. “Also, San Antonio is a pretty liberal city, and I live in what used to be Henry B. Gonzalez's congressional district.

“I've just never gotten around to getting into politics. But I like to complain.”

Gilbert Garcia is a native of Brownsville, Texas, with more than 20 years experience writing for weekly and daily newspapers. A graduate of Harvard University, he has won awards for his reporting on music, sports, religion, and politics. He is the author of the 2012 book, "Reagan's Comeback: Four Weeks in Texas That Changed American Politics Forever," published by Trinity University Press. One of his feature stories also appeared in the national anthology, "Da Capo Best Music Writing 2001."